A material having undergone re-entry or a simulated atmospheric re-entry may have undergone certain degradations modifying its resistance and accordingly it is important to be able to determine a residual rupture stress representative of the degraded state of said material.
Up until now, atmospheric re-entry simulations mainly form the subject of two types of analyses, namely visual appearance control and weight loss analysis. However, these analyses appear to be insufficient or inaccurate and it thus seems essential to obtain additional information making it possible to more reliably quantify this residual stress.
To obtain this information, traction tests are conducted on a test piece embodied from a pellet in which on each side half-moon shaped notches are embodied, thus facilitating sampling for a traction test. As these traction tests provide insufficient results, the Applicant has considered completing these tests by conducting compression tests and to this effect making use of a suitable device and tooling.